Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Boston Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine was the featured speaker at the Virginia Tech baseball banquet on Friday.

BLACKSBURG - One might assume that steering the New York Mets to the 2000 National League pennant has been the highlight of Bobby Valentine's managerial career.

Or perhaps it was guiding the Chiba Lotte Marines to the Japan Series title in 2005.

But Valentine, who was introduced as the new manager of the Boston Red Sox on Dec.1, doesn't just focus on championships when reflecting upon his career.

"Experiences, there's a lot," Valentine said Friday in a session with the media before speaking at the Virginia Tech baseball team's annual fund-raising banquet. "When a guy gets his first hit. When a guy gets his first win. When you win the big series that you're not supposed to win, or you win the one you are supposed to win. After 3,000 games or so, there's been a lot of great experiences.

"Never would I think there's one game or one thing that was so much better than the others. Otherwise, why go to spring training, if the only thing you're worried about is what's going to happen at the end of the year?"

Valentine, 61, has not managed in the majors in 10 years. He managed in Japan from 2003-09 before spending the past two years as an ESPN analyst.

He said the Boston vacancy was "probably one of the only jobs" for which he would have left ESPN.

"I'm honored to have the job," Valentine said. "It seems like a pretty great place to manage, so I'm ready to go."

Valentine succeeds Terry Francona, who led the Red Sox to two World Series crowns. Francona resigned after last season, when the team went 7-20 in September and blew a nine-game lead in the American League wild-card race.

There was also off-the-field controversy. The Boston Globe reported that some starting pitchers ate chicken and drank beer in the clubhouse during games in which they weren't pitching.

The Red Sox hope Valentine has what it takes to return Boston to the playoffs.

"I hope I can bring everything that I've learned over the 40-something years that I've been in baseball and connect with the players that are on this team and make them an excellent baseball team," he said.

A lot of Red Sox fans, said Valentine, still have a "sour taste" from last season.

"They're keeping me separate from that," he said. "They'll include me as soon as they lose a game, I'm sure.

"The reception's been incredible. I can't believe how many fans are passionately committed to that team."

Valentine won 1,117 games in the majors as the manager of the Texas Rangers (1985-92) and the Mets (1996-2002).

The experience of managing in New York should be good preparation for Valentine in dealing with the tough Boston media and the ardent fans of the Red Sox.

"The fandom of the Mets, the fandom of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan and the fandom in Boston are very similar with their passion," Valentine said.

"It's all been good preparation. It wouldn't be a good first job, I don't think."

Valentine's first base coach will be Alex Ochoa, who was the hitting coach of the Salem Red Sox last season. His pitching coach will be Bob McClure, who was pitching coach of the Salem Avalanche from 1999-2001 when the club was a Colorado Rockies affiliate.

"Alex played for me with the [Triple-A] Mets in Norfolk and then played against me in Japan, so I've known Alex for quite awhile," Valentine said. "Bob, I really had no personal association with. I did pretty much a complete search †and Bob came up on top."

Valentine grew up in Stamford, Conn., where he rooted for the Red Sox's hated rival, the New York Yankees.

But managing against his boyhood favorite won't be a hard transition for him this year. After all, he managed the Mets, who lost the 2000 World Series to the Yankees.

"After †years of doing the Subway Series, interleague play, sharing the back page [of the New York tabloids], doing all that stuff, it's a pretty easy transition now," he said with a laugh.

Valentine had agreed to speak at the Tech banquet before he was hired by Boston.

On Sunday, he will attend the Super Bowl. He grew up a New York Giants fan but has become a friend of New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.